Sunday, November 25, 2012

BILLFISH: Another amazing week for fishing in Cabo.
Beautiful weather, calm seas, just perfect. The week started off a bit slow,
boats went to the Golden Gate area and the dorados were hard to find, so were
the marlin, Bill Collector took Richard &Dustin Simoncic from Phoneix AZ to
the Finger banks, about 18 miles further than the Golden Gate, a long run but
was worth it as they released 5 striped marlin and landed 2 football size tunas
and a 20 lbs dorado. Our good friends Terry & Linda Smith from California
went on their annual trip aboard the Tracy Ann on the 18th, Julio
took them to the 220 spot on the Pacific side and they released 3 striped
marlin and 2 Blue Marlin, both estimated at 350 to 400 lbs. After that, some
marlin were found closer to shore around the Old Lighthouse but still a bit
slow, however the boats started to find some yellowfin around that area, so
only the anglers really interested on going for marlin ventured all the way to
the Finger again, like the Dunlap Family from Baton Rouge LA, releasing 5
striped marlin aboard the Tracy Ann on the 19th, our Swedish
friends, Anders Lundgren (he looks just like Sammy Hagar), Roger Sturk and
Robin Gustaussum, relasing 6 striped marlin aboard the Rebecca, the rest of
their group went aboard La Brisa and released 5 sriped marlin, they were closer
though, only about 10 miles from shore. Falcon released a Blue Marlin estimated
at 250 lbs for Mike Verdegaal from Cali. Fearless released 5 stripeys for
Angelo, Lasehe, Max, Peter, Nick and Panss Smyrnios from Colorado, they were
fishing the Herradura spot.

This week, 42% of our boats
caught billfish, a total of 82 striped marlin, all released, 3 pacific
sailfish, all released and 7 blue marlin, 6 were successfully released.

Anders Lundgren "Sammy Hagar" with his Striped Marlin

OTHER CATCHES: Small game fishing turned up to be a bit slow this week, Dorados have
been a bit hard to find and tunas are still scattered between the Sea of Cortes
and the Pacific. Still, 62% of our boats caught Dorado, only 13% caught tuna.
The catch of the week goes to Bill Collector with 20 dorados in one day for
Richard Simoncic from Phoenix AX, this guy’s week was awesome!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Matt Leonard from Bel Air Maryland released this long bill pacific spearfish aboard Adriana, shown here with deckhand Fernando on the left

BILLFISH:
Cabo
is a fisherman’s paradise right now, the fish are thick, lots of dorado, some
big tuna and some amazing marlin catches that hint of what is to come. November
16th, the end of this report, was when we saw the jump on marlin
catches. This day saw Pisces 31 ft Betram “Rebecca” catch and release eight
marlin, plus a sailfish for Dieter Decker and friends from Sarnia, Canada, off
of Todos Santos.This same day Tom
Collins, Jim Huson and Matt Gray from Idaho also did very well to release eight
striped marlin aboard Pisces 31 ft Bertram “Tracy Ann”.One day before, this same boat had released
six marlin and boated a dorado for Gary and Leslie Owen from Brandon, Missouri.
Not only did we have striped marlin making an appearance, Pisces 31 ft Cabo, “Cabolero”
caught a 380 lb blue marlin at the 95 spot, on a pink and black lure, for Larry
Barkley and Bart Durrant from Edmonton. There were plenty of other boats that got
a single marlin, plus other game fish such as dorado or tuna. The marlin were
taking ballyhoo or live bait and were found up the Pacific by Todos Santos,
which is a fair run.Twenty six percent
of boats caught billfish this week, breaking down into 39 striped marlin, 1
sailfish and 1 blue marlin; all but one fish were leased.

Matt Leonard again, this time with a nice size dorado, also aboard Adriana

OTHER
SPECIES: Dorado remains the number one sportfish in Cabo at this
moment, with no sign of a slowdown. Our top dorado boat was Pisces 31 ft
Bertram “Ruthless” for thirty caught in one day, plus a wahoo for Dave Kaminski
& family from Valparaiso, Idaho – fifteen of the dorado were released.Several other boats had twenty plus dorado days.
This species are averaging 20 to 30 lbs with catches on the Pacific between the
Lighthouse and all the way up to Punta Lobos. Seventy eight percent of boats caught
dorado and the total fish count was 420. We had some nice tuna catches too, with
some large fish such as a 200 lb’er caught aboard Pisces 38 ft Blackfin “C Rod”
on November 14th, caught on a black and green lure twenty five miles
out.Pisces “Bill Collector” had a couple
of very nice fish too at 100 lbs and 140 lbs, taken at Punta Gorda on a skipjack
and candy lure respectively. Besides these catches we had others of smaller
fish, 10 to 50 lbs off of the Old Lighthouse giving us a catch rate of nineteen
percent and a tally of 79 fish. We had several smallish wahoo this week, plus a
few skipjack inshore. Our catch record would have been perfect this week if it
had not been for a couple of pangas that drew a blank.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Just checking the comments left for us in regard to this story, some were pretty nasty - so please take time to read the stories properly.1. Pisces did not catch this fish - neither of the boats associated with this story belong to us.2. We did not steal anybody's fish.3. We are just reporting the news....don't shoot the messenger!

This year’s tuna tournament was without a
doubt the best ever, everything about it, the organization, the people, the
parties, the fishing were fantastic. There is a real sense of community around
this event. People came from as far afield as Alaska and Wyoming to take part
in this tournament which due to the low entry fee is accessible to anybody –
you don’t have to be a millionaire to take part, you have jackpot options if
you really want to try and win some big money and the amount of door prizes and
raffles, means most people do not go home empty handed – including a local
children’s home which benefited from the generosity of the anglers.

One hundred and twenty one teams signed up,
making this the largest tournament held in Cabo in 2012. A field of mostly
local charter boats, though a fair share or larger, private sportfishers also
participated in the two days of fishing on Thursday and Friday. For sheer numbers of big fish, there has
never been a better year.

Shotgun start.

Day one saw twelve fish over 100 lbs come to
the scale and five over 200 lbs – in previous years a 200 lbs fish was good
enough to put you in the money, but this year it was no guarantee. Team
Renegade Mike stole the show when they weighed in a 266 lbs fish, caught aboard
a 31 ft Bertram – a very nice fish and the thinking was that this was quite
possibly the tournament winner. Team “Santana” had a couple of the guys on board from the team that had landed a 383 lb - the current tournament record – so
this really got our attention as we made our way down to the boat as it backed
in. The fish looked good, longer than Team Renegade’s, but was it fatter? The
answer was soon provided as the weighmaster called out “224 lbs”. Team Santana trailed away disappointed, not
realizing that they were in the money, to the tune of $92,000.00 due to the
jackpots they had entered. This day not a dorado or wahoo was weighed in over
the 30 lb minimum

Team Renegade Mike with their 266 lb tuna

Day two, started out fabulous, with over 100
people on the committee boat, organized as a charity event with sponsors and
guests on board, enjoying mimosas, breakfast burritos and getting in on the
excitement of 121 boats jostling for position, contained in a small area behind
the start boat. Fishing this day was
even better with thirteen fish over 100 lbs, five fish over 200 lbs and what
ended up being the overall winner a 372
lb tuna, for team North Star a
striking wooden boat, cold molded with a
fiberglass liner, Carolina style of just 30 feet. It looks more like an Italian
speed boat than a fishing boat, but who cares, they know how to catch fish.

Winning fish was fat at 372 lbs

Tournament Results:

1st North Star 372 lb tuna
total winnings $223,540.00

2nd Renegade Mike 266
lb tuna $95,240.00

3rd Dona Meche 262 lb
tuna $2,420.00

Day 1 optionals Santana 224 lb tuna $92,000.00

Optional $10,000 pot two days, went to Maybe
Manana who did not need a big fish, in fact theirs was just 97.7 lbs to win
them $72,000.00.

Nice pay off for a 30.5 lb wahoo for team
Baja Bait, who took the rollover to the second day and took home $79,200.

Hard luck story was for team Missing Lenk;
they were entered in the $10,000 jackpot and had a nice fish, but broke down –
team Maybe Manana went by with their fish on board, which they knew was
smaller, the twist is that the captain of Mabye Manana and Missing Lenk are
brothers, plus the father of both captains was also aboard the distressed
vessel. Team Maybe Manana were in a dilemma as to what to do, should they stay
and help or go in and weight their fish. There was a 6.00 pm deadline to be back
at the marina or the fish could not be weighed. They turned back to Maybe
Manana, made sure they were O.K then headed in to weigh their 97 lb fish, but
looked pretty glum. They then headed out to assist Missing Lenk who coming in
on one engine did not make it back in time but who would have taken the $10,000
optionals with their 217 lb fish.

BILLFISH:
An extremely busy week in Cabo with the W.O.N Jackpot Tuna Tournament going on,
which we shall write a separate report on. It was really nice to see people
& sponsors new to the area that raved about the Cabo fisher and told us
they travel all over the world and that there is nothing like Cabo, so let’s
all keep up the good work and keep protecting our sportfish. The marlin are
starting to show up, despite reports that they are not at Mag Bay, we saw our
catch rate start to edge up slightly, with twenty four percent of boats
catching striped marlin or sailfish, but then again the water temperature is
still warm as is the weather overall – striped marlin tend to favor water
around 70 F. Top boat this week without a doubt was Pisces “Bill Collector” onNovember 4th, when they caught and released three striped marlin and
a sailfish, plus six dorado for Rob & Ryan Thomson from New Mexico at
Cabeza de Ballena – all the billfish took live bait and the dorado green
colored lures. Another boat that did well was Pisces“C Rod”, a 38 ft Blackfin with two striped
marlin released plus ten dorado, fishing at Golden Gate on the Pacific and
Elias Calles for Jim Schraith from the aptly named Dorado Hills, Ca and David
Cremin from Los Angeles. There were other boats that did well with a single
marlin plus dorado – like Pisces “Tracy Ann” on November 9th with a
striper, sixteen dorado and a 27 lb wahoo that missed out on winning $79,000 in
the Tuna Tournament by three and a half pounds. Pisces anglers caught twenty
three billfish this week consisting of 18 striped marlin and 5 sailfish, all
released.

OTHER
SPECIES: Dorado catches are nothing short of amazing
right now, with eighty seven percent of boats hooking up to fish in the 15 to
25 lb category…rarelyare they larger
than that right now, but the sheer numbers made up for this giving anglers
catches of one to twenty two fish in aday. It is nice to see people being responsible by releasing smaller
fish as well as those above the quotas. It was not unusual to see a boat report,
twenty fish caught and ten released – this sets a great example and shows that
people are thinking. Our total dorado catch this week was 668 fish, both caught and released.Tuna catches for the regular charter boats were on the slow side at just
fourteen percent. Those in the tournament concentrating only on this species
actually did well at Punta Gorda and straight out from Cabo. Our largest was
aboard Pisces “Great Escape Jr” with Zev Hendeles and family from New York with
a beautiful 144 lb’er caught out from San Jaime – they kindly donated the
fillets to local children’s home. Wahoo catches improved slightly but they were
all small fish, nothing larger than 30 lbs. “Bill Collector” released a small
hammerhead shark that was around 40 lbs. The only other catch was skipjack tuna
closer in to shore.

Deckhand Salvador Flores from "La Brisa" with a very nice Dorado.

LOCATION:
Pacific, Land’s End to Golden Gate, Cabeza de
Ballena and Punta Gorda.

This morning we had a lenghty converation with Joe Estrada the 45 year old owner of an auto glass replacment business in San Antonio, Texas who claims that the 300 lb louvar, caught in Cabo on Thursday and circulated on the internet actually pertains to him and his two friends, Wayne Tauer who runs a boat repair shop and Greg Graham, a parole officer. Joe told me that they had already fished a couple of days with Dr. Pescado II and had a good time with the crew, they were out again on Thursday when the captain, Oscar, spotted the large orange shape just off of Land's End. Joe told me that they were amazed and had no idea what the fish was, though the captain knew it was good eating. "The fish was up on the surface and swimming in circles, it was missing a part of it's tail and there was obvioulsy something wrong with it", stated Joe. They pullled up close to the fish and gaffed it and soon had it tied to the swimstep.

"We wanted to head back with the fish" Joe said, "we knew it was an unusual catch". But the captain said "the dorado bite is good, let's stay and fish and I will find somebody to take it back". The captain got on the radio and the phone and made contact with the Marina II, who came and met up with them. They briefly tied the fish to the buoy to make the transfer from boat to boat so that they could float it and avoid the risk of losing the heavy fish.They continued fishing and caught a dozen doardo, before heading back. As soon as they tied up to the dock, some guys approached and showed them a picture of their fish and when they asked where it was, they were told that it had been filleted and distributed to local people around the marina. We asked Joe what his captain's reaction had been and he said "he felt betrayed".The video clearly shows that the fish was still quite lively and when asked about this Joe said "I don't know if I would have done the same thing (kill the fish) but that fish was not going to survive with half a tail". What disappointed Joe though was the way things were handled and the fact that he did not get to try a single bite of what is know to be a delicious species.

Joe did add "I like the fact that everbody was fed, I hate to see fish go to waste and I am glad that so many families got fed" when asked what it took away from this incident he said "Trust your instinct. I knew we should have headed back straight away with that fish and insistited upon it. All these guys work hard for a living and you can't put eveybody in same category, just because of one bad apple", he stated, referring to the captain of Marina II.

After we posted the Louvar story a few days ago, our reservations office got a call from Joe Estrada, a fisherman who with friends, claims to be the real owner of the 300 lb louvar that was brought back to the dock last Friday. Apparently he and friends, all die-hard fisherman, had rented a boat called Dr. Pescado and they were the ones who spotted the large fish, just off of the arch, not four miles out from the Lighthouse, they had tied it off to a buoy and were planning on picking it up later, but their captain called somebody else, the Captain of Marina II and asked him to take the fish back to port and get it on ice, so it would not be ruined by the sun. Joe continued fishing and they caught some dordo, but the group was excited to head back to port to check out their strange catch. However, when they got back, there was no fish and they were told it had already been filleted & photos taken with the captain who was supposed to be doing them a favor - Joe told me that he "didn't get a single fillet" and as you can image was pretty upset. He told me "I have great photos, of the fish still alive in the water". We have a call scheduled with him this morning to get the rest of the details as his phone was low on battery when we spoke yesterday.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

BILLFISH:
For Cabo standards billfish catches were on
the low side this week with just sixteen percent of charters hooking up to
marlin and sailfish. It appears that the mass migration that we usually see
between November and December has not started yet; when striped marlin get
spotted at Mag Bay by boats on their way back to Cabo from California, we know
they are headed this way soon.A lot of
the bigger boats head north in summer to comply with insurance requirements hat
want them out of the hurricane zone.With the dorado catches so outstanding a lot of anglers are content to
have plenty of action on a sure thing, rather than search for a billfish location.
Top billfish boat for us this week was Pisces 28 ft Uniflite “Adriana” who
managed to release two blue marlin, when others were having a hard time even
locating a striper. On October 30th, John Meyne, from Las Vegas was
aboard when Adriana hooked a 250 lb blue marlin, just one mile off of Santa
Maria, on a blue and white lure. The fish was released and they want on to boat
two dorado and a skipjack. The second blue marlin for this vessel was caught by
British angler Michael Taylor, from Bracknell, Berkshire in the same area, this
time on a green lure and estimated at 270 lbs.The only boat to have a double marlin day was Pisces “Valerie” on
November 1st when they released two striped marlin between 100 &
120 lbs and caught a small wahoo and eight dorado for Tim McNeil and Karl Reid
from Whitecourt, Canada.This boat was
one of the only ones to release a sailfish, during the week also. It seems that
the billfish catches were closer to shore this week, seldom more than four
miles out. Pisces anglers caught a total of 11 billfish this week consisting of
7 striped marlin, 2 sailfish and 2 blue marlin – all released.

OTHER
SPECIES: We might as well call this the dorado
report, seeing as ninety percent of our boats caught an average of ten dorado
per trip. The majority are being caught on the Pacific between the Old
Lighthouse and Golden Gate and average 20 to 25 lbs. Our total dorado count
this week was a whopping 557 fish, many released – a testament to the fact that
Dorado is a species reserved for sportfishing and is not legally allowed as a
commercial catch. This fish is a lot of fun to catch and is tasty to eat, but
there is a huge push by the commercial fleet to get it removed from the list of
species reserved for sportfishing. If that were to happen then we would have
commercial boats, with their destructive fishing practices, right on our
doorstep and the non-selective techniques that they use would decimate billfish
populations as well as kill countless turtles. So please be aware of this and
do not order dorado at any restaurant in Cabo – it cannot be sold commercially,
so if it’s on the menu it’s illegal. We know it’s good to eat, but if there is
a commercial demand, people will continue to sell it illegally and give
strength to the commercial fisheries argument. You can catch your own dorado
and take it to get cooked at a restaurant, but it cannot be sold. Conservation
has to start with you…one person makes a difference. Besides the dorado, we had
a few wahoo with Pisces “Tracy Ann” getting two in one day plus seven dorado
for Mike McGuirk, from Newbury Park, Ca at La Ballena on October 30th.
Tuna catches were on the slow side, though we had some pangas that found them
mixed with skipjacks close to Santa Maria, where they caught up to five
football size, plus up to seven skipjacks in a day. The W.O.N tuna tournament
is coming up with fishing next Thursday and Friday; we know the big tuna are
there and we are keeping a close eye on “Wild Hooker” a boat that has been
doing particularly well on this species and we expect to see in the prize
money.

About Pisces

www.piscessportfishing.com
We started off as a family owned and operated business out of the City of La Paz, Baja, Mexico in 1978 with one 28 ft boat. A couple of years later we moved to Cabo and since then we have grown to be the largest and most respected charter fleet in Mexico.
To keep pace with the growth of a more sophisticated market we gradually added more vessels and can now offer everything from the basic Baja Panga to mega yachts. Still, the favorite of most Cabo visitors(28-31ft) standard cruisers, seaworthy, clean boat, with very experienced crews which are great value for money. Slightly larger(32-48 ft), newer model, vessels with more comfort like salons and air-conditioning. Over 50 ft Sportfishers usually being new high tech vessels with great speed and more range. Last but not least, the Luxury Yachts, most being multi-purpose - fishing, cruising, snorkeling, diving -ideal for those want to be pampered with the very best.
What sets us apart are the relationships we form with our clients, long-term; our focus is service, value for money and experienced crews. We have a proven track record that keeps our guests returning year after year.